Field Trip to Tohoku area - Day 3

On the last day of the field trip to the Tohoku area, we visited Kesennuma city and Rikuzentakata. While Kesennuma didn't have a broad flat coastal area, it was heavily dependent on the fishing industry and it lost nearly all of it's income.


We received many statistics from the municipality. Due to the tsunami, 1041 people died and 239 are still missing. 26,048 houses were damaged, which is 40.8% of all houses.

The tsunami height was 20 meter, and the subsequent land subsidence was 74 cm. Because of this, all coastal roads are to be heightened to 1.8 meter. In preparation of this, some roads have already been raised by 50 cm. T.P. refers to Tokyo Peil, Peil being the Dutch word for level and referring to the mean sea level at Tokyo.

Kesennuma also has a temporary shopping mall set up.

Although many buildings survived, there are also many that have been washed away or demolished since, and the buildings left standing are either still bearing the marks of the rubble that swept by, or temporary units. In the foundations the original layout of the buildings can still be seen, such as the toilet.

Though there are many hills surrounding the harbor area, only few are equipped with evacuation staircases. At some locations further uphill signs have been installed to show the height of the tsunami.

On the way to Rikuzentakata, we encountered more signs of the destruction. Many times the valleys were marked with past tsunami inundation section start and end, and transformed into rubble handling factories. The hills were used for temporary housing units, and the roads are filled with trucks transporting sand and debris. 

In Rikuzentakata, the tsunami hit area was over 4.5 km wide. Due to recovery efforts, this is now a large open plain with only some foundations left. The preserved pine tree was placed here as a symbol of hope. Below is a panoramic view of the plains which were once the city. 

Finally we visited a museum where a documentary of the GEJET was displayed, both in pictures and in retrieved items from the rubble. It also features historical images of past tsunamis, which emphasized the lack of bodies in the rubble we have seen in the media so far.